Grabbing a Nice Bust!

I think I need to get something off my chest and really get abreast of this issue. You see that picture up there, well it's one of the best paint jobs I've ever seen hands down, but get ready to be disappointed - it was a limited edition from some company called "Gigantic Miniatues" who only made 50 of them - and don't bother looking on e-bay either as I already did.

Unfortunately for my wallet, just seeing the picture was enough to light a fire in my hobby pants. After painting so many 28mm models I just had to get my hands wrapped around something bigger, so with that in mind I pushed the generous mounds of hobby crap off of my table and embarked on a new adventure to unknown lands.

That's one nice bust!

I'm also blaming this new obsession on Angel Giraldez's Painting Miniatures from A-Z as it was the busts featured therein that first made me want to grab a bust of my very own (and led to several questionable bust related image searches that eventually ended in me finding this mini in the first place).

There was just one small problem with my plan - most busts are horrible!

This isn't the bust I dream of...

Some busts were so bad I had to remove the images....

After trawling the internet for a span of several minutes I realised that I was after a specific kind of bust and not just any bust would do. I mentally created a list of factors and narrowed my search criteria:

1. First of all the bust had to be well formed (writer's note - I'm running out of boob related joke material, better go watch Dude Where's My Car to get back in the zone). This factor also included not being Fugly, or some kind of historical berk.
2. Obviously only a female bust would do - and I had a real reason too (honest it's a good one). I wanted to attempt some airbrush work and a female face would be a lot better for smooth blending that than some craggy dude.
3. It had to be tasteful - this thing will probably end up on display somewhere, so no actual nudity (and if you're wondering why that might be an issue, just try looking at busts on the internet for a while).
4. It didn't necessarily have to be a bust - what mattered most was the larger scale, so I also looked at some larger scale miniatures too.
5. A sci-fi theme would be preferable as I wanted to try using a stencil to get that hexagon effect seen on the unobtainable "Hush" by Gigantic Miniatures.

It was during this search that something occurred to me - I didn't actually need to meet all of the points above - I could convert the bust to be more science fiction oriented. The only thing holding me back was my own skill level, which means that basically as long as I didn't have to sculpt large portions of it from the solid I'd be fine. After I realised that I cast a wider net and finally found a bust I would be proud to spray with the sticky white stuff (undercoat - get your mind out of the gutter!).

So here we are - a bust of Luz from Malefic (apparently). It basically ticked all of the boxes other than the theme, but wouldn't be too hard to adjust (OK it would take some work, but that would be a lot of fun in itself). Being as it's 2/3 of her body already I figure I might as well get some legs on her too as I go. It should be quite a project to work on.

I also found a company that makes airbrush stencils with a hex grid (Anarchy Models), so my dream was getting closer by the minute.

With that the first part of my quest came to an end. Now to wait for the postman and dream of the things I could do to a woman's bust! ... errrmmm I mean a bust of a woman.....

Check back later for the second instalment of this exciting saga - and you were probably thinking there wouldn't be anything this exciting till the next series of Game of Thrones was released.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these pictures, nor are they my own work. Copyright held by their original authors and all that.